Ron Paul And Iowans Supporting Him Deserve Each Other

If Iowa is an anomaly and not representative of the national perspective why should Iowa open the voting in each election cycle?

[Black Star News Editorial]

Things are bad when Newt Gingrich blasts Rep. Ron Paul for the racist views espoused in his newsletters in the past.

This is a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Gingrich has already forgotten that recently he complained that young Black kids could not hold down jobs and had no role models who worked in their neighborhoods unless it was drug-dealing.

He proposed a remedy: That the young people should be put to cleaning toilets. That was Gingrich's best idea. He didn't suggest training for internships or jobs in corporate America.

Still, Gingrich with his obnoxious views, was until mid-November the leading Republican Presidential candidate going into the Iowa caucuses. He polled in the lows 20s; but he's since plunged into low teens.

This is because Gingrich was displaced by the new kid on the block; Rep. Ron Paul. This medical doctor's newsletter warned against sharing bathrooms with gay people. It would expose healthy people to the risk of HIV/Aids.

Ron Paul has recently gained media notoriety because of racismespoused in his newsletter years ago. He now claims he either "rarely" or "never" read the newsletters which he had launched as part of his business while he wasn't in Congress. His explanations are not credible.

Here's a summary of some of the wisdom Ron Paul's newsletters spread:

An article in 1992 in The Ron Paul Political Report, called “A Special Issue on Racial Terrorism,” discussed the urban rioting that followed the vicious police assault on Rodney King and observed: “Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks three days after rioting began.”

Again referring to Black people, an article in Ron Paul's newsletter in October 1992 declared, “even in my little town of Lake Jackson, Texas, I’ve urged everyone in my family to know how to use a gun in self defense, for the animals are coming."

Ron Paul also opposed a national holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., of whom an article in his newsletter in 1992 claimed that King was a “world-class philanderer who beat up his paramours." Ron Paul is also on the record as saying he would have voted against the Civil Rights Act because it would have infringed on private property rights.

The views expressed in Ron Paul's newsletter are repugnant and abhorrent.

Yet, the same Ron Paul is now polling ahead of his Republican opponents in Iowa and he has raised millions of dollars -- way more than any other candidate except Mitt Romney and Rick Perry.

Since Ron Paul has surged in Iowa, notwithstanding these views expressed in the newsletters and now exposed by media, what does this say about the voters in Iowa? These aren't the ideals that this country has increasingly tried to embrace over the past few decades.

Most observers believe that even if Ron Paul wins Iowa, he won't win any other state and definitely will not be the Republican candidate.

This raises an even bigger and more important question. If Iowa is an anomaly and not representative of the national perspective --the inclination, the aspirations and the voting pattern-- why should Iowa open the voting, with its caucuses, in each election cycle?

In truth Iowa's caucus gained prominence only in 1972 after The New York Times wrote about it.

It's time to change this tradition.

"Speaking Truth To Empower."

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